


forgive, forget

by marinersapptcomplex



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Character Study, Depression, M/M, Therapy, this is so SAD yeehaw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 08:23:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18442736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marinersapptcomplex/pseuds/marinersapptcomplex
Summary: He sleeps, he drinks, he laughs until all the punchlines are lost on him.





	forgive, forget

**Author's Note:**

> hAHA i dont know what this is or if i even like it but im going to leave it here anyway

A thirst for air to keep from drowning in the city smoke and sadness.

 

Bottles piling up in his bedroom, glinting emerald in the starved light, like stained glass in a church window. He sleeps, he drinks, he laughs until all the punchlines are lost on him.

 

“I’m going out,” says James, aftershave and shower gel wafting in like waves from the doorway. “Want to join?”

 

Alex says nothing, shakes his head. Even being here, in this room, with another breathing, living soul feels lonely. He doesn't understand anymore. He wishes he could understand.

 

“You sure?”

 

“I’m sure.”

 

James closes the door, leaves. Alex buries his face in his hands like a kid, snotty-nosed and red-faced, crying with no remorse. _It hurts to hurt this much_ , he thinks, _it hurts to hurt like this and not know why_.

 

\--

 

His mum calls. Voice shrill and cracking, “Please come home, Alex.”

 

“No,” he says back, eyes lidded and sleepy. “I’m fine, really.”

 

His mum cries over the phone and Alex feels nothing. He lies there, hungover and numb, counting the cracks on his ceiling like stars. She cries and she cries and she cries, and still, he feels nothing.

 

_It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault. I’ve been doomed from the start._

 

\--

 

“Have you been drinking?” His therapist asks, face stern and sterile.

 

“No.” He says, smiling.

 

She ticks a box on a form, places a pen behind her ear.

 

Alex tries to imagine a tomorrow in which he doesn’t wake up crying. He can’t.

 

“Yes,” He says, suddenly, looking away. “I have.”

  


\--

 

Alex stays in bed and watches movie after movie. He watches The Notebook, he watches Notting Hill, he watches Titanic. He hates them, wants to burn them all.

 

They’re just faces, pretending, and none of it really matters anyway.

 

Alex stays in bed and stares at the wall. He drinks and forgets. Forgets people and places, forgets names and faces. Forgets the feeling of staying afloat, chooses to sink. Chooses to sink the boat.

 

 _Fuck Jack_ , he thinks. _Fuck Rose, too._

 

\--

 

“I made pasta,” James says, tray in his hands, eyes glittering in the half-light of his room. “You should eat.”

 

“I can’t,” Alex stares at James and doesn’t blink. “I won’t.”

 

James says nothing else, he knows not too, just leaves silently. Alex hears weeping in the hallway. He doesn’t get up. He doesn’t care anymore like he used to.

 

\--

 

Life passes. Alex stands submerged in an endless dream.

 

\--

 

James forces him out of bed, drags him to the kitchen table, pours him milk into a bowl of Shreddies. Alex stares down, doesn’t know what to do.

 

“I need sugar,” he says, small. He hasn’t talked in weeks. “Is there any sugar?”

 

James places a bowl of white sugar on the table, sit down and watches Alex dump sugar on his soggy Shreddies. A strange mixture of grief and anger ingest his face. There are wrinkles on his forehead that weren’t there before.

 

“Go on,” James nods his head. “Eat.”

 

Alex picks up the spoon, swirls it round and round and listens to it clink against the bowl. He lifts it to his mouth, takes a bite. Chews. Swallows.

 

“Good?”

 

Alex nods and tries not to cry. The milk turns sour in his mouth. His body feels limp, extinct.

 

“Alex?”

 

He wails, sobs. His shoulders shake with inconsolable grief. James tries to wrap an arm around his shoulder, but Alex only cries louder.

 

“I’m sorry,” is all he can manage through the tears.

 

He tries to remember this will pass. He tries to remember.

 

\--

 

His therapist makes coffee and sets it down on the cover of a magazine.

 

“If you could wave a magic wand, what positive changes would you make happen in your life?”

 

Alex laughs, smiles, frowns. “I’m not sure.”

 

“Come on,” she says, taking a sip of her coffee. “There must be something.”

 

“I’d make sure I wasn’t depressed,” he stares back at the magazine cover, all glossy and plastic. “I’d make sure I was normal.”

 

He doesn’t listen to what she has to say. He doesn’t want to.

 

\--

 

His mother, blurred and indistinct, “Oh, Alex. How did this happen?”

 

He wants to say, _You made me this way. I am you, and you are me. You did this._

 

\--

 

In scrawled writing, in the back of a notebook, _I’m in a dream, and I’m going to wake up. I’m not here right now. I’m not here._

 

_\--_

 

Alex drinks, drinks, drinks until he blacks out. Drinks until the weight of the world is not so heavy on his shoulders and he can laugh without crying. He drinks and drinks and drinks. _Whatever, whatever_ , he thinks, _it doesn’t matter anyway_.

 

James finds him unconscious, drives him to the hospital. In the backseat, Alex coughs up bile and blood. He can’t breathe. He doesn’t care, he doesn’t care.

 

“Leave me,” he mumbles, soft and fragile. “Please.”

 

James says something, but Alex can’t hear, he’s lost, he’s somewhere else. James lets his body down on a gurney, waves him goodbye as the paramedics check for a heartbeat.

 

“Let me out,” he says to a nurse. “Let me out of here, please.”

 

They pump his stomach. They leave him in a hospital room, the air smells like bleach and blood.

 

James visits first. They don’t speak for hours.

 

\--

 

“I’m sorry,” Alex says, at home. “I’m so sorry.”

 

He drops to his knees, sinks, rests his head on James’ lap. His face is obscured by James’ shadow in the low light of the room.

 

“I thought you were dead,” he replies, looking away. “I thought that was it.”

 

Like the creature from the Black Lagoon. Like there’s a dagger stuck between his ribs, and he’s pulling pulling pulling, until gallons of black mud oozes out and his heart doesn’t hurt so bad anymore.

 

“I know,” Alex presses his cheek against James’ hand, wipes a tear away. “And I’m sorry.”

 

“I only want you to be happy.”

 

“I know, I know.”

 

Alex thinks about everything that's brought him to this point. He knows better than to be afraid of himself.

 

\--

 

Alex writes, talks, runs, screams. He buries his pain in the things that matter to him. He buries it and he doesn’t dig it up. He throws a funeral. He throws a wake.

 

He survives.

 

Alex walks with James to Hyde Park. They watch the flowers in silence.

 

“I’m here,” Alex says to himself quietly. “I’m here.”

 

\--

 

Alex goes to therapy and cries for a long time. There are no magazine covers, no questions, no cups of coffee. The world is bright, and too much. He hurts, but less, in a good way.

  


“Feelings are never right or wrong,” his therapist says. “They just are.”

 

\--

 

Alex wakes up one day and doesn’t hurt, doesn’t cry. He smiles, laughs.

 

“I’m here,” he says. “I’m here.”

 

 


End file.
